A Visit to Montfort Boys Town

After an eventful first day in office, we were tasked to do some field work on our second day in internship. Today I shall be accompanied by Lisa, another South Korean intern for the task that lies ahead.

Our destination was Montfort Boys Town (MBT). We were tasked to key in their contact list into their database and assist them in using our DWMA program. I was worried as it is my first field task.

MBT was established in 1959 by four pioneering brothers. MBT was purposed to be a house for underprivileged boys such as orphan and the poor. Also, Montfort Boys Town provides education in vocational skills such as baking, cooking, sewing, engineering and IT training in hopes that one day these boys will be financially independent.

In the present, Montfort Boys Town is home to approximately 200 boys and 40 girls. In my country, there is no such system like this; therefore, going to MBT was a really good experience for me.

Since MBT was so far from eHomemakers, CEO of MBT, Mr. Chin Kin Onn came here to pick us up at 10a.m. He has a good smile, and also is really humorous. We got into a car and headed for MBT.

It is the first time I’ve commuted in a local’s vehicle (excluding Taxi). Another thing that caught my eye was the fact that in Malaysia, the driver’s seat is on right side, whereas in South Korea it is on the left side. For the 5 days I’ve been here, I realized that the world was bigger and more diversified than I imagined.

I was very surprised when we arrived at MBT. In my mind’s eye, I pictured MBT to be a large building. However, it lived up to its namesake; MBT really looked like a miniature ‘Town’.

First, we went to his office to perform data entry into DWMA. As soon as we began, our first challenge surfaced. Unlike South Korea names, local people’s names can be very complicated to an extent that we could not divide their names into the first name and last name categories.

Fortunately, the locals were very helpful and taught us how to differentiate the first name from the last name. In my opinion, I think Malaysians are very helpful people.

Once we finished the data entry, it was lunch time.

A local staff at MBT named Jeki gave us our lunch. We haven’t settled down with the local food yet so we curiously opened our lunchboxes. Today’s lunch was ‘Chicken rice’.  It tasted better than we thought and gobbled up the food in no time.

After we finish eating, we were given time to explore their facility. I noticed there were a lot of Catholic-themed statues and pictures. In the ‘town’, there were several buildings that were allocated as classrooms for the students.

Similar to faculties in university, the buildings were purposed for different skill training.

There were many types of equipment in the buildings that were relevant for their skill training. For example, in the hospitality building there were real beds, tables and even a drinks bar. I was amazed to see the students learning various techniques to serve a table. In South Korea, we mostly ‘study’ by memorizing!

In fact, there is no such center such as this in South Korea. In my opinion, the people of South Korea should adopt and establish this system as it will benefit our unprivileged teenagers.

In conclusion, it was a very good first experience for me to see the diversity of culture and working ethics of the local people.

Blogged by Hae-Wook Choi